EAGLE RIVER — Keweenaw County Sheriff Curt Pennala announced on Tuesday that the county is seeking public input in the early stages of planning for a Keweenaw County Emergency Operations Center. An online survey is available for interested members of the public to complete and a public meeting is planned for February 21, from 5 to 6 p.m. at at the county courthouse. The meeting will take place before the regular February Board of Commissioners meeting.

Pennala said that through the planning process, the county is hoping to acquire some idea of the potential of a County Operations Facility.

“We know what’s needed on our side of things, what is needed for search and rescue,” Pennala said, “but is there something larger that will better serve the county that we could build?”

For example, he said, whether it could be a multi-use facility, and if so, what those uses might be. At the same time, the county needs to retain its focus on the primary purpose of such a facility.

“Locally, we also need a multi-agency training center,” Pennala said, “whether that be on the fire side of things, and the first responder side of things and law enforcement side of things, there’s no real, good building to host that kind of training, so that would be one (purpose).”

The facility would also house emergency and search and rescue vehicles, along with search and rescue equipment.

Pennala said that in the event of a large-scale emergency or public health response, typically there are multiple agencies involved, such as the Health Department, the Road Commission, EMS, law enforcement, and others, so an emergency operations center will allow all participating agencies to be present in one central location. This would make organizing and overseeing a coordinated, efficient response possible.

In addition to the need for such a facility in a region that is experiencing substantial increases in tourism, Keweenaw County is also a U.S. border region.

Because it is surrounded on three sides by Lake Superior, Keweenaw County participate in Operations Stonegarden (OPSG), a federal grant program administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, a component of the Department of Homeland Security, as part of the State Homeland Security Grant Program. Operation Stonegarden provides funding to state, local, and tribal law enforcement agencies to enhance their capabilities to “support joint efforts to secure the United States’ borders.

“That is to put boots on the ground where the Dept. of Homeland Security necessarily may not have the personnel to do so,” Pennala said.

To be eligible for OPSG, said Pennala, entities must be state, local, or tribal law enforcement agencies located along the United States border.

According to a release from the Sheriff’s Office, this first round of public feedback follows an announcement by the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Opportunity’s Office of Rural Prosperity that Keweenaw County will be awarded a $50,000 Rural Readiness Grant.

The grant supports initial visioning and planning for the Emergency Operations Center, with intent to improve and enhance Keweenaw County’s emergency response capabilities by:

• Supporting in-person and virtual training and multi-agency exercises for law enforcement personnel and emergency response volunteers.

• Ensuring search and rescue and law enforcement training equipment is properly stored and easily accessible.

• Providing a space for the County and its partners to coordinate large-scale emergency or public health responses.

In addition to the Feb.21 public meeting, the survey became available on Monday. It will be available until Friday, Feb. 23. Completing the survey should take no more than 3-5 minutes and is intended to gather community members’ insights to inform visioning and planning for this center. The survey can be found on the Keweenaw County Sheriff’s Facebook page at www.facebook.com/keweenawsheriff.